pable frame,
and denied the vents and appliances which men like you have at their
command. Mark me! see Astraea no more. Let your last interview with her
be your last forever. Enter our house no more; that interdict, at least,
I have a right to pronounce. But for myself, and from myself, and apart
from the privilege of my own roof, I warn you at your peril, and on my
own responsibility, never to see Astraea again."

"Are you mad?" I exclaimed. "Never to see Astraea again! To forsake her
society at your bidding! Wherefore do you make this monstrous demand? Do
you not feel how preposterous it is to thrust yourself into a quarrel
with me in a matter which not only does not concern you, but which
involves the feelings, perhaps the whole future happiness, of a person
whom you have just ostentatiously declared is the object of your hate?"

"I make no quarrel with you," he answered; "I will not quarrel with you.
I should be mad, indeed, if I did. What! set myself against your thews
and sinews? No, no--I break no bones with you--but I tell you, once
again, your fate is in my hands. I am your destiny, if you will have it
so. You may trample on the oracle; but you can not, with all your show
of bravery and your proud pretensions, with the lady, too, in triumph on
your side, escape its denunciations."

"Did you, or did you not," I inquired, bewildered by his language, and
not quite satisfied that he was in possession of his senses, "did you,
or did you not, observe those attentions some months ago of which you
now complain for the first time?"

"I did," he answered.

"And why did you not then speak to me on the subject?"

"Because it wasn't ripe!"

"Ripe? If you have any meaning in these obscure hints, why do you not
explain it for your own sake, since you can not believe that I will
submit patiently to your insane threats? Again I ask you, did you, or
did you not, promote these attentions by every artifice and suggestion
in your power?"

"I did."

"Did you not watch them anxiously, forward them daily, and exult in
their progress, until you became secretly convinced that both Astraea's
feelings and mine were engaged beyond recall?"

"I did--I did--I did!" roared the dwarf.

"Did you not produce this very result yourself? Did you not seek it,
urge it, fan it to its height, and even glory in the flame you had
nursed so cunningly?"

"I did--I did--I did!" he shrieked, his whole body seeming to take part
in the frenzy